The Executive Director of Eduwatch Africa, Mr. Kofi Asare, has revealed that – according to a study conducted by Eduwatch Africa – on average parents pay about GH 7,000.00 for the admission of their wards into senior high schools. He indicated that the items listed in the school prospectus account for 45% (GH₵ 3,150.00) of that amount and the remaining 55% (GH₵ 3,850.00) is spent on personal provisions.

He also specified that the government is projected to spend about GH₵ 2,400.00 per student each academic year under the Free Senior High School initiative. In addition to GH₵ 3,850 spent on provisions in the second semester, an SHS student is projected to spend about GH₵ 13,250.00, in exclusion of other expenses, each academic year. This means a parent is expected to spend an estimated amount of GH₵ 12,000.00 on average each year – other expenses included.

“The trend between 2017 and 2022 means that the government will not spend more than 70%. The Ministry of Finance will not disburse more than 70% of this GH 2,400.00, (GH₵ 1,680) so the maximum you are likely to see is an expenditure of 70% of GH₵ 2,400 from the government. We are likely to see parents’ expenditure going up. That has been the trend”.
Mr. Kofi Asare

Mr. Kofi Asare further disclosed that between 2017 and 2022 parents’ contribution was GH₵ 4,120.00 accounting for 77% of the expenditure on Free SHS and the government’s contribution was GH₵ 1,200.00 (23%). He also indicated that as a result of the Free SHS initiative, the government bore 23% of the cost of education between the 2017 and 2021/2022 academic years.

He argued that the financial barrier to accessing Free SHS needs to be addressed. He specified that the study was done to find out the reason behind about 10% of students offered admission into secondary schools not honoring the admissions. He also indicated that in some years, 13% and 11% did not honor the admission however, the number has declined to 2% in 2023.

“The main reason was that they couldn’t fund the cost of the prospectus and also non-prospectus expenditure to honor their admission as first-year starters. If you look at this, these numbers add up to about 250,000 students between 2017 and 2023 even though 2.5 million were able to honor their admission. But these people we are talking about are people from low-income households. These are households that spend between GH₵ 8,000 and GH₵ 5,000 or less in a year as household expenditure and we have about four to five people in this household”.
Mr. Kofi Asare

Education And Finances

Moreover, the Executive Director of Eduwatch Africa argued that with an average household expenditure per year lower than school expenditure, it is highly unlikely for children from these households to honor their admission to Senior High Schools. He also indicated that these children however are willing to go to school if they have the funds.

Mr. Kofi Asare specified that the increase in enrollment in the secondary level of education over the years cannot necessarily be attributed to the ‘positive’ impact of the Free SHS initiative as financial costs have not been reduced. He argued that the increase in enrollment in secondary schools from 60% to 70% is due to the removal of the cut-off grades for admission.

He argued that the Free SHS initiative is not entirely about the government’s financial intervention, it is also about the removal of the admission cut-off which was an aggregate of 30 before the initiative kicked in. “Once you got more than aggregate 30 at BECE, it was difficult to get placement…now if you have aggregate 50 or 54 you will still get placement” he added.

He also indicated that students who had more than an aggregate of 30 were the ones in private Senior High Schools and remedial schools. He argued that the Free SHS initiative therefore saw the demise of some private schools at the secondary level of education.

Mr. Kofi Asare further admonished that the discourse on Free SHS must always include other interventions the initiative introduced other than the financial aspect which ironically is a small contribution.

Conclusively, while the Free SHS may have its advantages, it without doubts needs to be reviewed. A collective look at the WASSCE performance data of benefactors of the initiative is appealing, however, a categorical analysis of this data is far from encouraging.